细菌表面展示技术研究新进展

细菌表面展示是将靶标蛋白质表达于细菌表面以更好地实现其功能的一种技术,它在重组细菌疫苗、生物燃料电池、全细胞催化剂和生物修复等多个领域均有广泛的应用.随着相关技术的发展,表面展示系统的各种性能被不断地改良,同时新的表面展示系统也陆续被开发和应用,使该技术得到持续的丰富和发展.本文重点关注近年研究得较多的细菌表面展示系统,主要对各类细菌表面展示系统的开发、改造和修饰,以及该技术在生物修复和生物传感器方面的应用作一综述.     

氢氧化细菌SDW-16的分离鉴定及促生特性

利用气体循环培养体系从沙打旺根际土壤分离得到1株氢氧化细菌SDW-16(GenBank登录号:KF835389),16S rDNA序列分析和生理生化特征鉴定其为荧光假单胞菌(Pseudomonas fluorescens)。菌株对植物促生机制的初步研究表明菌株SDW-16除具有铁载体分泌能力外,还具有产IAA和ACC脱氨酶活性,其中产IAA量为(21.62±0.30)μg/mL,ACC脱氨酶活力高达(8 372.17±805.43) nmol/(mg·h)。菌株SDW-16具有多项促生能力且均高于其他菌株,说明菌株SDW-16有较高的促生特性,同时也初步证明了氢氧化细菌的促生机制。     

毛白杨乙酰-乙酰载体蛋白硫脂酶基因(PtFATB)的克隆与表达分析

植物脂肪酸合成的主要部位是叶绿体,叶绿体向外运输脂肪酸的种类和数量受到乙酰-乙酰载体蛋白硫脂酶(FATB)控制。FATB基因在植物生长过程起着非常关键的作用。本研究以毛白杨为材料,将生物信息学知识和分子生物学手段相结合,首先利用现有的杨树基因组EST序列库资源,通过同源序列搜索,经过多次拼接合并获得了理论的杨树脂肪酸去饱和酶基因PtFATB序列全长,利用RT-PCR手段成功克隆得到了毛白杨FATB基因全长编码序列cDNA,该cDNA全长1,450bp,包括起始密码子ATG和144bp的5′末端非编码区,终止密码子TGA和40bp的3′末端非编码区,开放阅读框编码421个氨基酸。通过RT-PCR半定量研究了PtFATB在叶片组织中的表达量最高,茎、根中的表达量依次降低。在低温、干旱、NaCl、ABA四种条件下诱导生长24h,只有在低温的条件下发现PtFATB表达量略微降低,其他几种情况未有变化,该结果表明PtFATB呈组成型表达。上述结果为植物脂肪酸的基因工程提供了基础。     

Comparison of Performance Parameters of Conventional and Nano-plasmonic Fiber Optic Sensors

A detailed comparative analysis is carried out between two fiber optic surface plasmon resonance (SPR) sensor probes with different bimetallic configurations. One consists of a step arrangement of thin layers of silver and gold. Another one consists of alloy layer formed of spherical silver and gold nanoparticles. Their sensitivity and detection accuracy are compared. Better configuration is predicted with proper logics and rationales.     

Synthetic biology and metabolic engineering of actinomycetes for natural product discovery

Actinomycetes are one of the most valuable sources of natural products with industrial and medicinal importance. After more than half a century of exploitation, it has become increasingly challenging to find novel natural products with useful properties as the same known compounds are often repeatedly re-discovered when using traditional approaches. Modern genome mining approaches have led to the discovery of new biosynthetic gene clusters, thus indicating that actinomycetes still harbor a huge unexploited potential to produce novel natural products. In recent years, innovative synthetic biology and metabolic engineering tools have greatly accelerated the discovery of new natural products and the engineering of actinomycetes. In the first part of this review, we outline the successful application of metabolic engineering to optimize natural product production, focusing on the use of multi-omics data, genome-scale metabolic models, rational approaches to balance precursor pools, and the engineering of regulatory genes and regulatory elements. In the second part, we summarize the recent advances of synthetic biology for actinomycetal metabolic engineering including cluster assembly, cloning and expression, CRISPR/Cas9 technologies, and chassis strain development for natural product overproduction and discovery. Finally, we describe new advances in reprogramming biosynthetic pathways through polyketide synthase and non-ribosomal peptide synthetase engineering. These new developments are expected to revitalize discovery and development of new natural products with medicinal and other industrial applications.     

Production of fuels and chemicals from renewable resources using engineered Escherichia coli

Biotechnological production of fuels and chemicals from renewable resources is an appealing way to move from the current petroleum-based economy to a biomass-based green economy. Recently, the feedstocks that can be used for bioconversion or fermentation have been expanded to plant biomass, microbial biomass, and industrial waste. Several microbes have been engineered to produce chemicals from renewable resources, among which Escherichia coli is one of the best studied. Much effort has been made to engineer E. coli to produce fuels and chemicals from different renewable resources. In this paper, we focused on E. coli and systematically reviewed a range of fuels and chemicals that can be produced from renewable resources by engineered E. coli. Moreover, we proposed how can we further improve the efficiency for utilizing renewable resources by engineered E. coli, and how can we engineer E. coli for utilizing alternative renewable feedstocks. e.g. C1 gases and methanol. This review will help the readers better understand the current progress in this field and provide insights for further metabolic engineering efforts in E. coli.     

Knockdown of SLC34A2 inhibits cell proliferation,metastasis, and elevates chemosensitivity in glioma

Solute carrier 34 A2 (SLC34A2) is a member of SLC34 family that is a group of phosphate transporters. SLC34A2 has been reported to play critical roles in tumorigenesis and progression. However, the researches about the biological roles of SLC34A2 in glioma have not yet been reported. In this study, we analyzed the expression patterns of SLC34A2 in clinical glioma tumor tissues and cell lines. The results demonstrated that SLC34A2 was generally overexpressed in both glioma tissues and cell lines. To further investigate the roles of SLC34A2 in glioma, lentivirus containing specific SLC34A2 short hairpin RNA (sh-SLC34A2) was used to infect glioma cell lines U251 and U87 for the knockdown of SLC34A2. The following studies proved that SLC34A2 knockdown exhibited suppressive effects on cell proliferation and migration/invasion. SLC34A2 knockdown also inhibited epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) phenotype, as evidenced by the increased E-cadherin expression, and the decreased N-cadherin and fibronectin expressions. Besides, knockdown of SLC34A2 enhanced the temozolomide (TMZ) sensitivity of U251 and U87 cells. In vivo tumorigenicity assay demonstrated that SLC34A2 knockdown inhibited tumor growth. Moreover, SLC34A2 knockdown suppressed the activation of epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR)/PI3K/AKT signaling pathway in U87 cells. GW2974 (EGFR inhibitor) increased SLC34A2 knockdown-inhibited cell proliferation, migration/invasion, as well as enhanced SLC34A2 knockdown-increased the TMZ sensitivity of glioma cells. These findings suggested that SLC34A2 might be a new potential therapeutic target for the therapy of glioma patients.     

Recombinant phycobiliproteins. Recombinant C-phycocyanins equipped with affinity tags, oligomerization, and biospecific recognition domains

A family of specific cloning vectors was constructed to express in the cyanobacterium Anabaena sp. PCC7120 recombinant C-phycocyanin subunits with one or more different tags, including the 6xHis tag, oligomerization domains, and the streptavidin-binding Strep2 tag. Such tagged alpha or beta subunits of Anabaena sp. PCC7120 C-phycocyanin formed stoichiometric complexes in vivo with appropriate wild-type subunits to give constructs with the appropriate oligomerization state and normal posttranslational modifications and with spectroscopic properties very similar to those of unmodified phycocyanin. All of these constructs were incorporated in vivo into the rod substructures of the light-harvesting complex, the phycobilisome. The C-terminal 114-residue portion of the Anabaena sp. PCC7120 biotin carboxyl carrier protein (BCCP114) was cloned and overexpressed and was biotinylated up to 20% in Escherichia coli and 40% in wild-type Anabaena sp. His-tagged phycocyanin beta--BCCP114 constructs expressed in Anabaena sp. were >30% biotinylated. In such recombinant phycocyanins equipped with stable trimerization domains, >75% of the fusion protein was specifically bound to streptavidin- or avidin-coated beads. Thus, the methods described here achieve in vivo production of stable oligomeric phycobiliprotein constructs equipped with affinity purification tags and biospecific recognition domains usable as fluorescent labels without further chemical manipulation.     

New Glycoprotein-Associated Amino Acid Transporters

The L-type amino acid transporter LAT1 has recently been identified as being a disulfide-linked ``light chain' of the ubiquitously expressed glycoprotein 4F2hc/CD98. Several LAT1-related transporters have been identified, which share the same putative 12-transmembrane segment topology and also associate with the single transmembrane domain 4F2hc protein. They display differing amino acid substrate specificities, transport kinetics and localizations such as, for instance, y⁺LAT1 which is localized at the basolateral membrane of transporting epithelia, and the defect of which causes lysinuric protein intolerance. The b^0,+AT transporter which associates with the 4F2hc-related rBAT protein to form the luminal high-affinity diamino acid transporter defective in cystinuria, belongs to the same family of glycoprotein-associated amino acid transporters (gpaATs). These glycoprotein-associated transporters function as amino acid exchangers. They extend the specificity range of vectorial amino acid transport when located in the same membrane as carriers that unidirectionally transport one of the exchanged substrates. gpaATs belong to a phylogenetic cluster within the amino acid/polyamine/choline (APC) superfamily of transporters. This cluster, which we designate the LAT family (named after its first vertebrate member), includes some members from nematodes, yeast and bacteria. The latter of these proteins presumably lack association with a second subunit. In this review, we focus on the animal members of the LAT cluster that form, together with some of the nematode members, the family of glycoprotein-associated amino acid transporters (gpaAT family). Received: 20 July 1999/Revised: 7 September 1999